


ever trust your heart

by lovelit



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Dehumanization, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Extremely Dubious Consent, Implied/Referenced Non-Consensual Drugging, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Master/Pet, Mind Manipulation, One-Sided G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light, One-Sided Zenos yae Galvus/Warrior of Light, Size Difference, Temporal Paradox
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:27:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23577634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovelit/pseuds/lovelit
Summary: Zenos brushed his thumb over the creature’s cheekbone and decided that, yes, the Crystal Tower would be aperfectdiversion while he awaited the return of his most favored of savages.
Relationships: Zenos yae Galvus/G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35
Collections: Smut 4 Smut 2020





	ever trust your heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mechabre (tender_anaphylaxis)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tender_anaphylaxis/gifts).



The Crystal Tower had been… a diversion, mostly. A little white-robed bird whispering in his ear that he might find some entertainment inside that was linked to his favored beast, and, well, how could Zenos resist? Entertainment had been so sorely lacking in his life before he’d found them, and now they were apparently off gallivanting across another world where - at least as of _yet_ \- he had no way to follow them.

Perhaps he shouldn’t have been able to enter the Tower, either, sealed off as it was. But he’d stood before it and waited, and after minutes or perhaps hours the doors had groaned their way open. Perhaps they’d been reluctant, if an entrance could be, but all doors eventually found their way to opening for the heir to the Garlean empire, and this one was no different. It found its way to opening for him, and the Tower was his to wander through as he willed, until he found the beast sleeping on the throne.

He was a little thing even by miqo’te standards, as far as Zenos could tell - well-muscled for his kind, especially in the arms, but at least two fulms shorter than Zenos himself. Easy enough for Zenos to lift him bodily from his resting place with ease, if he so chose.

For now, though, Zenos only reached out to tilt the creature’s chin up, watching the way his eyes twitched below the lids and his brows knitted in protest. He came to wakefulness slowly in Zenos’ hand, though Zenos supposed it was to be expected - from what he could gather the Tower had been sealed for a full five years, give or take, and this creature presumably slumbering for the entire length of that. So the slowness, the apparent disorientation, were almost certainly to be expected, as the creature stirred and his eyelids eventually fluttered open to reveal the bright red eyes beneath.

The Allagan Eyes. Zenos had heard of them, had learned of Allag and its bloodline in his lessons, but had never seen them before this moment. A brighter red than the blood they told of, but still intriguing nonetheless, and cut through with the slitted pupils of a Seeker suited them, Zenos decided. Foggy with the beast’s struggle to wakefulness suited them, too, and Zenos brushed his thumb over the creature’s cheekbone and decided that, yes, the Crystal Tower would be a _perfect_ diversion while he awaited the return of his most favored of savages.

* * *

_(In another time and another world, the Exarch jerks upright from the not-quite-sleep that is his lot in life now, and for a long moment does not, exactly, know where he is. But it is only a dream of when he’d slept for so long upon Xande’s throne, perhaps; only a memory of those years, so long ago, and of the uninterrupted slumber that they had held._

_If it has been years since the Exarch last slept deep enough to dream, well, has his dear Warrior of Darkness not changed so many things? Is the Exarch himself not one of them?_

_If the hand he dreams of is not the Warrior’s, the face he sees behind his eyelids for a few half-waking moments entirely different from theirs— well, the subconscious has ever been a complicated creature. It need be nothing more than that.)_

* * *

G’raha Tia, as the creature’s name turned out to be, took less than a week to break.

It was no real surprise - just as all all other obstacles would eventually bend to Zenos’ will, all men would eventually bow before it - and, while he’d half hoped for more fight out of one apparently cared for by his own favored beast, the speed of it was less of a disappointment than he expected. There was some satisfaction in having this creature kneeling at his feet while he sat atop the throne that the beast had slumbered on, of having those bright eyes turned up to him with something in them that was beginning to shift from fear and anger into something else.

Perhaps it was the fact that he couldn’t, as of yet, entirely tell what that something else was going to be. Perhaps - and he suspected this to be more likely, or at least a larger part of it - it was the thrill of having a creature at his feet that, all told, he suspected his favored beast had loved. G’raha Tia had certainly been infatuated enough with them, it seemed, for all that their time together had been short.

Well. Zenos could understand that. The beast _was_ captivating; they had to be, to have captured Zenos’ own attention. In that, perhaps he felt something like kinship with the creature at his feet. It was a new experience. Perhaps, once he tired of this one, he could find another of his friend’s favorites, and see if the feeling held true.

Still, this one held his attention for now, and it would be an unkindness to his favorite beast to not savor their toys. Particularly when this creature was the only one with the Allagan eyes, the only one who brought control of the entire Crystal Tower along with him. Yes, it would be an unkindness to not savor him - especially when he’d broken so readily for Zenos and now, when Zenos reached out to stroke fingers through his hair, only leaned slowly into the touch with a quiet, halting purr stuttering in the depths of his throat.

* * *

_(The Exarch drifts, sometimes, and comes back to himself with a purr bubbling up in his throat that surprises him more with the realization that he’s still capable, despite the crystal climbing his neck, than it does with its presence._

_Does he not have reasons, now, as he had lacked in those long years before Norvrandt’s salvation? Is the night sky above the Crystarium, filled as it is with all its brightly shining stars, not reason enough for any man to purr, should he be one capable?_

_He does not dream of fingers rubbing over the tips of his ears. Or, if he does, he retains it as nothing more than a brief, passing fancy when he returns to full wakefulness. It has been many years, a lifetime past since he last felt that sort of casual affection, and ‘tis only natural that he remembers it in the face of other half-remembered joys that are beginning to return to him, no?)_

* * *

He hadn’t intended to use the beast sexually, or at least hadn’t particularly considered the idea. It wasn’t that Zenos had any particular moral issue with it - he was well aware that many of his fellow countrymen considered the savages in their acquired territories as much the spoils of wars as the territory itself, after all - but it had never been something that had held any particular appeal to him. Battle was always what had made his blood sing, in as much as anything ever did, and the only pleasure of the flesh that he’d ever truly sought had been that of slicing into it and feeling another’s life drain out under his power.

But there was only so long that one could spend with someone kneeling close at their feet without at least _considering_ making use of them. Particularly as the creature lost his fear and rage to acceptance and - perhaps influenced by the steady supply of hi-potion that Zenos had been feeding him in doses not quite high enough to truly take the edge off of his injuries - a kind of dull, dragged-out mockery of affection that had him frequently rubbing his face against Zenos’ thighs in an especially feline motion. So he considered it, and found the idea pleasing enough, and from there it was easy enough - out of armor as he was - to reach down and free his cock, still soft for the moment.

The movement drew the creature’s eyes, and Zenos arched one eyebrow as he lifted his head enough to look up at Zenos’ face.

“Well, beast?” he prompted. “It’s no large matter to me, whether you take it or not.”

He wouldn’t have particularly minded forcing the issue, had he been just a little more invested in the outcome, but there was something about leaving it up to the creature’s whims that, admittedly, made Zenos’ cock twitch against his palm. Perhaps the knowledge that, had he asked this of him upon first entering the Tower, he would have been met with disgust and rage, perhaps even another attempt to fight him off.

Now, though, his obedient beast only stared up at him for a long, drawn-out moment and then - letting out a deep, shuddering breath like he was expelling something from the very depths of his being - leaned in to nuzzle inexpertly at Zenos’ cock.

It was obvious that he had no particular personal experience with this, for all that Zenos had gathered Tias in the Seeker tribes often did, but he made up for it with a certain charm to his inexperience. In his inexperience he required a little urging to actually make use of his mouth and, even once he had been urged, their relative sizes presented something of an issue; his beast could just about fit the head of Zenos’ cock into his mouth, but not much more than that, both the girth and the length proving a firm obstacle.

Still, he seemed to have put his mind to it now, and brought his hands into the equation without any input at all from Zenos. New as it all clearly was to him, he had the general idea down, and the clumsy drag of archery-calloused fingers over the shaft of Zenos’ cock did its work well enough, particularly coupled with the wet heat of his mouth stretched around the head of it - admittedly with more of a press of teeth than most people would likely have approved of, but Zenos supposed it was an expected risk of the sizing issue. Besides that, he’d ever been something of a stranger to experiencing much in the way of physical pain but, not, as it happened, an enemy of it, and if anything the threat of teeth was more exciting than not. Not as exciting as it might have been had Zenos suspected that his beast still had it in him to use them against him with intent to kill, but the creature having given himself over so thoroughly did still have its own appeal.

A domesticated pet was different from a feral beast, but perhaps they could both have their own appeal; this creature was nothing like his favored savage now, if he ever had been, but there _was_ a certain appeal to that. 

The Warrior of Light, his first friend, would fight against him at every turn with bloodied fangs and wild savagery. The figure who’d brought him to this Tower, his self-proclaimed hunting dog, would herd his prey into his waiting grip. And this creature of the Allagan blood, this ruler of the Crystal Tower and perhaps, if he so chose, his favored pet, would kneel for him and obey him. 

Perhaps, with the right training, even this well-tamed pet would once again bare fangs, only at Zenos’ enemies. Perhaps, with _enough_ training, his pet and his beast would bare fangs at one another, and to face his pet - and his beast’s former comrade, former friend - in battle would stir his favorite enemy’s hatred toward him into something even more than Zenos had seen in the past. 

The thought of it made his blood sing, pulse thrumming hard enough in Zenos’ veins that he found himself reaching out to knot the fingers of one hand in his pet’s hair and hold G’raha in place as his hips jerked forward in little motions, forcing his cock in and out of his mouth. Even with the grip, he couldn’t get really get much further into his pet’s mouth than before, and the roughness had the creature’s teeth scraping harder against Zenos’ cock, his pet apparently unable to compensate enough for the way Zenos was trying to fuck into his mouth. That pain only roused Zenos’ blood further, though, and his pet’s face - bright eyes dripping with tears and saliva dripping down his chin, expression all pain and humiliation and desperate, red-faced arousal - even moreso.

“Does it—” He had to stop and take a moment to school his voice, unaccustomed to the way it shook under the force of this arousal. “Does it feel good to give yourself over so completely to an enemy? I wonder what your precious Warrior of Light would say.”

His pet made a desperate noise, squeezing his eyes shut in what looked like shame. The way his hand tightened encouragingly around Zenos’ cock said otherwise, though, and when Zenos lifted one foot enough to press it between G’raha’s legs, he found his pet to be desperately, achingly hard under the sole of his boot. He jerked at the contact, and the movement made his teeth scrape over Zenos’ cock with enough force to really, truly hurt for a moment, enough to make Zenos hiss in satisfaction while his pet began to rut desperately against his foot.

“Perhaps— perhaps the next time my path crosses with theirs, I ought to tell my treasured friend how willingly their old companion took my cock,” he growled out, entirely delighted with it - with the crudeness of the wording, with the thought of their bloodlust if he did, with the surging arousal that had him so, so close to a release he’d previously only ever come close to in the thick of battle. Another thought had him even closer, and he went on, “Perhaps the Echo will even show them this. The inheritor of the Allagan legacy, reduced to nothing more than an obedient pet at their loathed enemy’s feet?”

Apparently he wasn’t the only one who was close, because those words had G’raha jerking violently enough that he practically gagged himself on Zenos’ cock as he came. The sensation pulled Zenos over the edge himself, and he held his pet in place by his hair until the end, so that when he finally let go he was treated to the sight of G’raha jerking back and coughing Zenos’ come down his chest and over his hands. The coughing was violent enough to have some of it landing on Zenos’ boot, too, and he raised an eyebrow down at his pet as he tucked his cock back into his pants.

To his credit, his pet only frowned up at Zenos’ face for a few moments before shuffling back on his knees, leaning forward and licking the spattered come from the top of Zenos’ boot. He didn’t make any kind of show of it, but the fact that he did it at all, let alone without even being actually asked, was more than enough. Zenos had expected him to do it if he was asked, but he hadn’t actually cared enough to ask for it. He certainly hadn’t expected the creature to be quite so easily-trained as this.

He found he couldn’t particularly complain, though, and he only leaned himself more comfortably on the throne, elbow on one of the arms and his chin resting upon his hand, and watched G’raha in silence for long enough to make him squirm.

“…yes,” he said, eventually, “I think I _will_ enjoy telling them all about you, pet.”

* * *

_(The Exarch feels curiously empty, sometimes, in a way he takes for hunger at first but that no food seems to satisfy, and it leaves him out of sorts and— not irritable, none in the Crystarium could accuse him of being anything but patient, but… out of sorts, certainly._

_There are many things that he misses, many things about his life before the Tower and before the Crystarium that feel like dreams of long ago and that he misses deeply, dearly. But those can be named, specific people and places and even things so simple as foods and music that do not exist on the First. Not this, though, this emptiness in him - in his mouth, in his heart, in his memories - that remains always out of grasp, always nothing more than a long-forgotten dream._

_He cannot place it, but it drives him further and further into a dizzying, desperate longing that he cannot name and that, eventually, sends him out of the Ocular to curl at the base of Xande’s throne as he had done before, more than a lifetime ago now._

_And perhaps some small part of him protests that he had never curled up at the base of it like this, only slept, uninterrupted, upon the seat of the throne itself. But that protest cannot hold up to the rightness of this, the **memory** of this, and the only thing that still drags at the Exarch’s contentment is the lack of that person sat atop the throne and laying claim to his possession.)_

* * *

The Tower - and by extension, his pet dwelling within it - made for such a fine diversion that Zenos was almost disappointed when his self-proclaimed hunting dog returned, apparently having found a way to transport Zenos to the same shard of this world as his favored savage. Only _almost_ , though. It was a shame to be pulled away from something actually enjoyable, as few as those things were in his life, but Zenos had not required any will but his own to enter the Tower, and he was sure he’d be able to return soon enough if he willed it.

In the meantime, though, he only lifted his pet back onto his old place atop the throne, watching the way G’raha curled as best he could into the spots where Zenos had rested, as if trying to chase his lingering warmth against the cold of the crystal. Those red eyes were on Zenos, as they so often were now that he was brought so well to heel, bright and attentive and without a shred left of the disgust and rage that had bloomed in them at first.

Humming his approval, Zenos ran his fingers - once more in gauntlets, prepared as he must be for the rush of battle if he saw his first friend again - through G’raha’s hair, watching the creature close his eyes and tilt his head prettily into the touch. Watching him bare his throat to Zenos without hesitation, as perhaps none had done before.

Yes, his pet _was_ well-trained, and Zenos definitely had no intention of letting this be the last time he saw him.

“Sleep, and I’ll return when the time is right,” he ordered, voice firm. “Sleep again, and remember well who you belong to.”

* * *

_(The Exarch sleeps. A true sleep, one as he has not known in so many years._

_He dreams, and he does not remember when he wakes. But in the depths of that true sleep, perhaps he remembers—)_

* * *

Zenos’ blood had been afire as he stepped through the portal that his self-proclaimed hunting dog had created for him, all burning through with anticipation and excitement and the sheer exhilarating expectation of battle and bloodshed.

And then he is stepping out into the First, and his eyes alight upon his first and truest friend, his most treasured enemy, and he is so enamored with the sight of the swiftly blooming shock-fear-hatred-longing across their face that it takes him a moment to register his surroundings.

But he knows this place, has had long weeks to learn the way that light shatters off of these shining crystal walls and that every movement echoes against this shining crystal floor. He knows this Tower, and he knows its ruler, and he _owns_ its ruler and so, true, is it not fitting that he should find himself here? Is it not fitting that he should look past his favored beast - ignoring the rest of the Scions and their useless, too-slow scramble for their weapons - and see the face of his treasured pet behind them? Skin cut across with crystal, yes, but still Zenos’ pet; still those bright Allagan eyes gone wide at the sight of him, still those soft ears pressed back against his head, still that body so much smaller than Zenos’ own.

Still that voice that Zenos has learned so well - learned how it sounds in tortured pain and wild pleasure and exhausted compliance - as he speaks one word as though it is wrenched out of him, deathly quiet but still cutting through all the other noise and bringing it to ringing silence.

“ _—Zenos_.”

* * *

_(The Exarch remembers, and the Exarch kneels.)_


End file.
